Kouvaras shows off her other skill

Musica Intima has successfully developed a strategy to bring together wine, food and music in a congenial atmosphere. This time, the concert featured music by Melbourne composer Linda Kouvaras.

With Kouvaras at the piano, soprano Vivien Hamilton performed several of the composer's songs. The song cycle, Art and Life, was given its first complete performance. The work is strongly feminist, and the songs themselves appear to work better as individual numbers, rather than as a complete group.

The song, Woman's Predicament, is a powerful exploration of domestic violence, and the two lullabies are musically most attractive. Distant Lullaby has been doing the rounds for some years, due to the recording of it by Linda Thompson and Deviani Segal. It is one of the best Australian examples of the genre, and the song can sit proudly on a pedestal alongside Peggy Glanville-Hicks's Come Sleep.

Of the songs from outside the cycle, the darkly hued An Elegy, and the delightfully wicked (though vocally difficult) Teddy Bears' Picnic were impressively shaped by the duo. Kouvaras also presented several of her piano works. Apart from Anagnorisis, these turned out to be rather problematic as compositions. Kouvaras's songs have a strong degree of musical discipline, an aspect not immediately apparent in her piano writing.

Well-worn keyboard gestures appear as frequent signposts in these sprawling works, and the art of communication is lost in the long-windedness. While Kouvaras's piano music might have a limited life span, her songs have a much brighter future.